Reverse Jailbreak - Man Climbs In

A man wanted on charges of selling cocaine found a unique way to turn himself in Tuesday. He broke into the Orange County Jail's 33rd Street complex.

Maurice Washington, 22, was arrested about 3 a.m. after he climbed a 12- foot-high fence topped by three strands of barbed wire and climbed down into a yard, jail director Terry James said.

After the arrest Washington was booked and put into a cell at the jail.

''He was drunk, and he said he wanted to turn himself in,'' James said. ''Yeah, they corrections officers were surprised. It's not exactly your average everyday occurrence.''

Washington climbed over a chain-link gate that allows trucks into the storage and delivery area, James said.

He said the man would have had to go through two security vestibules, each with two locked, sliding glass doors, to reach the area where prisoners are held.

The man was carrying only a change of clothes when he climbed over the fence. James said a guard in an indoor booth monitoring closed-circuit cameras on the jail's perimeter saw Washington climbing over the gate and alerted other officers.

James said ''we sent an adequate contingent of people'' to arrest Washington.

''He probably heard that the facilities were nice,'' James said. ''Seriously, I'm sure if it were anyone else, they would have walked in the front door. But it concerns us, because we don't want to get into a more serious situation, where someone in that position could get shot.''

Washington, 2779 L.B. McLeod Road, was arrested only on sale of cocaine charges. The charges stem from a January incident in which he is accused of selling less than a gram of cocaine to an undercover agent from the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation. James said the sheriff's office is studying further charges against Washington.

''He didn't really damage anything,'' he said. ''He didn't have a chance to do anything, because we acted right away.''